Two Cups of Tea
by anemotionallyinvestedfangirl
Summary: Even though Sherlock Holmes was infuriating and condescending at times, John sinks deeper into depression as he mourns his old friend. Post-Reichenbach Fall.


It was a cold day in London; frost was engulfing the windows of 221B Baker Street. John sat motionless, locked inside his own mind. Thoughts of his best mate falling, falling, always falling. These haunting memories were worse than those of the war. John's heart was slowly breaking. In waking hours or in sleep, he only ever thought of Sherlock.

_"Goodbye, John."_

His laptop lay strewn out on the couch, carelessly tossed away and forgotten. There weren't any cases to update his blog with anyways.

_"I'd be lost without my blogger."_

John was the lost one now.

The clients stopped visiting after news broke of Sherlock's death. Everytime the bell had sounded, John had lit up with the tiniest grain of hope. But when he reached the door and found only a mother worried about her missing son or an innocent bloke accused of a heinous crime, his heart broke a little bit more.

"_Keep your eyes fixed on me."_

Now Sherlock was all John could see when he closed his eyes. His prominent cheekbones, his smirk, his slender fingers, his dark curly hair. But most of all, John could imagine the consulting detective's penetrating eyes. Staring, all-knowing, observing everything. They took in the smallest details and understood everything. They certainly had understood John. Understood how he would be crushed, ripped apart, destroyed.

John was haunted by the undescribable emotion behind Sherlock's eyes right before he jumped. The fear, sadness, anger, and pity- all boiling up. Until the very last moment, when there was a flash of pleading. He seemed to be pleading with John to understand. To observe, not just see what was happening. To realize why he was doing this- why he had to jump.

To see that he was alive.

"_Don't make people into heroes, John. Heroes don't exist and if they did I wouldn't be one of them."_

But John had watched Sherlock, almost machine-like in his processes. Saving countless people, foiling evil schemes, always defeating the villans. He was as close to a hero as John had ever known.

But John's hero wasn't invincible.

John would never forget. He couldn't ever forget. Sherlock had always been there, and now he wasn't.

"_I was so alone. I owe you so much."_

And now John found himself alone again. John felt as empty inside as the flat he had shared with his friend now was. A part of him seemed to have left with Sherlock.

Sometimes John would just sit in his chair, looking out onto Baker Street. He would try to mindlessly look down at the other people. He admired how they could just carry on with their lives, unaffected by Sherlock's death, living without the hurt he so deeply felt in his heart. He wished the pain would subside and that his vicious wounds would heal.

On one particularly horrible day for John, he had woken up and in a groggy state had accidentally brewed two cups of tea. He waited in the kitchen for his flatmate, but when he came to the awful realization that Sherlock wasn't there to drink the second cup, John broke down.

He staggered into his leather chair, when suddenly a tall, curly-haired man caught John's eye. The mysterious figure was wearing a dark coat with a turned-up collar adorned with an indigo scarf. The man's gaze was eerily familiar. It was that one gaze that made you feel like you couldn't hide anything. The gaze that could read you in a millisecond- understand where you had been, who you where with, and what you had done.

It was the gaze of the only consulting detective in the world, Sherlock Holmes.

* * *

John stumbled to the window, not believing what his eyes were seeing. It couldn't be. He had watched Sherlock fall, he had seen his blood-drenched hair, and felt his pulse stop.

John had gone mad. Absolutely mad. He had attended the funeral of the man standing across the street from him now, staring directly at him. It had to be a hallucination, that was the only explanation.

What would be better, he thought. To be right and see Sherlock alive, or to be wrong and have completely lost it? John didn't know. But he had to find out.

He raced down the stairs and ran into the street, scouring the landscape for any sign of his long-lost friend. But he couldn't find anyone. Whatever or whoever it had been had vanished.

John shuffled back up the stairs and slammed the door of 221B. The day's emotionally-exhausting events had worn him out and he needed sleep. Obviously that's what had caused the hallucination, sleep-deprivation. But somewhere deep inside John's medical mind, he knew that hadn't been it. But he slept anyways, hoping somehow his heartache would drift away when the drowsiness finally took over.

The two, now-cold cups of tea sat waiting for John on the kitchen counter.

* * *

Just down the block from his old living quarters, Sherlock Holmes slipped out of a small cafe. He had seen John reenter 221B, so he was sure he was completely out of sight. He raced down the block and hailed the nearest cab. The carefully calculated plan, all the brilliant ideas Sherlock had fabricated, the monologue he had imagined explaining everything to John had been destroyed when he had caught sight of his old friend's face.

His face was sallow, so weary, and beaten; the dark circles under his eyes that demonstrated his lack of sleep, his uncombed hair showed he hadn't left the house in a while, and his unkempt bathrobe proved he had refused to accept reality and move on with his life. He had abandoned hope completely and given up. But he just couldn't accept the fact that Sherlock was gone.

Sherlock couldn't bear facing John. Not like this. For once, Sherlock cursed his deductive powers. He didn't want to know of John's dependence, his loneliness, his surrender.

It was better for everybody if he left and never came back, Sherlock thought.

As he stepped into the backseat of the cab, he unlocked the screen on his phone. The cursor flashed on an unsent text message, waiting for Sherlock to finish his thoughts, urging him to spill out his inner desire to alert John that he was alive.

But instead, Sherlock deleted the message that read:

John, please forgive me. I will explain everything.

-SH

The consulting detective, the machine, the one that so many suspected to be inhuman deleted the message.

The one text he would never send. The text that showed he was human- that he felt guilty.

He wouldn't let himself do that to John.

He sighed heavily. It was better this way.


End file.
